In Training

This past week I found myself sitting in a college classroom.  That is right – student Wayne!  The last time I sat in a classroom as a student was 27 and a half years ago, when I got my MBA going to night school at Fairleigh Dickinson University.  This past week I attended a class at the University of Connecticut.  No, I am not going through a mid-life crisis, looking to find myself or taking on a new degree.  I am at a training course to prepare myself for the next couple of months.  As I sit in the classroom, during a break, my thoughts wonder off on why we learn:  Because our parents told us to go, to learn a skillset or to simply to improve ourselves.  As Jim Rohn so eloquently put it, “Formal education will make a living, self-education will make you a fortune.”

Let’s face it, we all start off going to school because our parents told us to.  I am no different, as I expected Gab and Bec to go to college and “follow the correct path” towards the future.  Education is extremely important.  Both girls, as it ended up, chose different paths and each had unique, semi-non-conventional experiences.  When I went to undergrad, it was because that is what I was supposed to do.  I struggled, but graduated on time from Lehigh University.  I was finished, swearing never to go back to school.  Two years later, I went to school for my MBA; this time, it was for me that I went.  The experience was completely different and I was able to better put into perspective the topics I was learning…OK, and there were less distractions (different topic for, maybe, a different day).

This time around, it is a single, short course to help me.  It is to learn the material, watch how the sessions are taught and walk away with the ability to help others.  I taught for 10 months at a trade school many years ago, teaching book keeping.  I taught the material as presented and added some insight from the real world.  Having gone through some self-education, I should have approached the teaching as helping others to get what they want.  That is what teaching should be about, having the students walk away with something that will help them.  As I looked around the classroom, some things have not changed – some students were there to better themselves, while others were just there.  Maybe it is maturity, maybe it is experience, or maybe it is understanding why I am in that classroom.  Either way, I walked away feeling good about learning new things, seeing the benefit and gaining the ability to help others down the road.